Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords were a set of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that were signed in Washington DC in 1993 and in Taba, Egypt in 1995. The agreements began as secret negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO leader Yasser Arafat in the aftermath of the First Intifada, and the accords helped in establishing a peace between the PLO and Israel. In 1994, Jordan officially made peace with Israel, and the accords created the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; however, the accords did not create a fully-independent Palestine, and it left the issues of Israeli settlements and the Palestinian "right of return" unsolved. The negotiations held by US president Bill Clinton would come to a close with the start of the Second Intifada in 2000. The agreements may not have permanently put an end to the conflict, but it recognized the PLO's status as the representatives of the Palestinian people, established a "roadmap for peace", and drastically decreased PLO terrorism. Rabin was assassinated by a far-right extremist who was opposed to peace with the Arabs, while the PFLP and other non-Fatah factions of the PLO rejected the accords and called Arafat a traitor for negotiating with Israel.